PAL-M is not really PAL though, it might even be possible to mod it to NTSC.

Wow, I did not know that. Looks like it is nearly identical to a NTSC signal other than the encoding of the colour carrier. So it can technically work on NTSC TVs, but the picture will be in black and white.

tokumaru wrote:

Not though the Power Base Converter, that much has been confirmed. I seriously doubt this has any kind of SMS support.

Interesting that the collection of games is so similar to the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection published for various systems a few years ago. Which lends credence to this being legit, I think? Seems likely that these are the most convenient games for them to license still.

Wow, I did not know that. Looks like it is nearly identical to a NTSC signal other than the encoding of the colour carrier. So it can technically work on NTSC TVs, but the picture will be in black and white.

Yes, you can mix PAL-M and NTSC devices and only lose the color. Many consoles released in Brazil were basically NTSC units, with added parts to handle the color conversion. The NES and the Atari 2600 are examples of consoles that can easily be converted back to NTSC if you simply change the oscillator and remove an add-on board.

I had a big long write-up about my concerns with this device (from a legal and "oh look, those old games from the 90s are still making us money, so hey, time to sue people" standpoint), but I decided to say f*** it and just post the link + let people blab on their own. I do find it interesting it has an SD card slot + includes an SD card with 22 games, while simultaneously supporting cartridges (smells like a Genesis version of the Retron 5 -- except this is apparently a Sega-sanctioned product).

We have enough Portuguese-speaking folks here that if someone needs something translated from the pre-order page, it shouldn't be a problem.

I had a long conversation with someone (who came from South America) 8 years ago on clone systems (I was blissfully unaware of clone NES/SNES systems let alone the Sega systems until then) how he bought these things for his kids and wasn't concerned at all that they might be fake or pirated or whatever.

Brazil is an interesting place for video games (all of South America is, but Brazil is especially unfriendly to imports) so instead of Sega importing their Japanese-made systems they instead just licensed one manufacturer to basically do everything. The weird twist to this is that they never stopped producing them. This is also why clone systems keep popping up elsewhere in the world. The chips to clone a Sega Genesis(MegaDrive) have always been out there (there's about 42 of them.) Though it's very likely that if they're switching to emulation now, it's probably because it's cheaper to stick a Rockchip 3066 (Retro N5/RetroFreak) and use a linux-based emulator on a ARM platform than it is to produce the full size PCB's with all the separate parts. That said, Brazil's an interesting place where nobody gives a care about piracy. So if they put all the parts into one chip (eg a FPGA) or made an ASIC out of it, and it uses a SD card, that's actually quite normal for Brazil. Just grep'ing through the FAQ suggests it's a new ASIC and not an emulator, but someone would need to acquire one and tear it down to know for sure.

Personally I'm of the opinion that if you're going to remake a console, you have to provide low-latency HDMI so at the very least, the TV/monitor's scaler isn't used. The nature of the Brazil market is that EVERYTHING for the Brazil market is produced in Brazil (or at least final assembly in Brazil) otherwise it costs a fortune to import. So they may be right and all Brazilian TV's have composite input. Meanwhile in the US/Canada, Japan and Korea, 4K TV/Monitors are being produced with USB-C, HDMI2 or Displayport only.

_________________I come from the net. Through systems, peoples and cities to this place.

I've said it before: Whether something is marketed as a "TV" or a "monitor" makes a big difference in how likely it is to have legacy inputs such as composite. Here in the USA, the All-Channel Receiver Act requires that non-mobile TVs receive both ATSC and NTSC in order to pick up certain low-power stations that were exempt from the 2009 digital transition. So grouping them might not be the best strategy.

I've said it before: Whether something is marketed as a "TV" or a "monitor" makes a big difference in how likely it is to have legacy inputs such as composite. Here in the USA, the All-Channel Receiver Act requires that non-mobile TVs receive both ATSC and NTSC in order to pick up certain low-power stations that were exempt from the 2009 digital transition. So grouping them might not be the best strategy.

Indeed. If you buy a 4K computer monitor today, it will not even have VGA or DVI. The one I bought this year only has DP and HDMI.

Don't even get me started on OTA broadcasts. The vast majority of people do not have good enough equipment, or live in buildings with high signal attenuation even if they live in a broadcast area.

Anyway, regarding new Sega Megadrive/Genesis systems, most of the chips in the original system were off the shelf to begin with, and a FPGA source for it has been available (under a BSD license) since 2010. If this is what it's derived from it's reasonable to believe that any incompatibly with existing carts is probably specific to physical non-Brazil market cartridges. Much like how PAL and NTSC carts are basically the same thing but run slower on PAL consoles, or PAL-optimized games run faster on NTSC consoles. At any rate, whenever it comes out, someone in BR needs to do a teardown and see what's actually in it.

_________________I come from the net. Through systems, peoples and cities to this place.

it's reasonable to believe that any incompatibly with existing carts is probably specific to physical non-Brazil market cartridges.

There are no such incompatibilities. Brazilian cartridges are 100% compatible with US cartridges, including the software.

Quote:

Much like how PAL and NTSC carts are basically the same thing but run slower on PAL consoles, or PAL-optimized games run faster on NTSC consoles.

PAL-M is 60Hz like NTSC though, so nothing like this is going on for sure.

My current theory is that because of the SD slot, games have to be copied to some sort of internal RAM where programs run from, which means that cartridges too have to be dumped so games can be loaded into this same memory and run from there. This would mean that any real-time interactions with cartridges are off the table, which includes coprocessors, mappers, the Game Genie, and maybe even save memory. Sounds like a significant amount of incompatibility to me.

Quote:

At any rate, whenever it comes out, someone in BR needs to do a teardown and see what's actually in it.

A DVI-I input can receive both DVI-D signals (electrically the same as HDMI) and DVI-A signals (electrically the same as VGA). A DVI to HDMI cable works only with DVI-D signals, not DVI-A signals. This means a couple of my PCs, which have only VGA outputs, are completely incompatible. A converter from VGA (or DVI-A) to HDMI (or DVI-D) would need an ADC.

Too bad the Digital Display Working Group no longer exists as an organisation/committee, otherwise I'd be pointing you to their Feedback page so you could discuss that with them and not people who weren't part of the creation of the DVI spec. I would be willing to bet my soul they'd love to have had a long, in-depth discussion about the misleading nature of offering analog support on a connector and protocol that started with the word "Digital" </sarcasm>.

The intended goal of DVI-A was to permit for transitioning, specifically cases like someone having a VGA-only PC but had to replace their monitor and wanted something that was a future-compatible transitional upgrade (e.g. the monitor might use DVI-I). VGA-to-DVI-A adapters were/are common.

If you want a better oxymoron, try USB: Universal Serial Bus, yet there is no USB device class standard/specification for serial (RS232-like) interfaces. Modems yes, serial no. Thus, every USB serial adapter uses its own proprietary driver, and many of them are horrible quality or badly implemented (in hardware and/or software). This was further compounded by Microsoft being jerks about pushing Vista onward. FTDI tends to make the best ones (cue Tepples to link 500 resources to FTDI being jerks by bricking FTDI-clone ICs through a driver update). And yes, I'm well-aware that by "Serial" they mean the protocol type/flow, not serial ports.

Except for the SD card slot, I see this as no better than an atgames clone. In fact, it may even use the same hardware, because atgames uses some kind of enhanced GOAC and has a cartridge slot. Of course it fails with many cartridges, not just enhanced ones like Virtua Racing.

The FCC terminated low power analog TV transmissions as of September 1, 2015 in the United States. I was surprised in 2014 when I was playing with an old B&W portable TV in a thrift store and actually saw an image briefly from the local FOX affiliate. Then I later learned that although the major channels were supposed to have transitioned to digital in 2009, low power broadcasts were still being sent via analog signals. As the FCC is in charge of enforcement of the All-Channel Receiver Act, I doubt it would enforce a now useless requirement.

The analog NTSC tuner remains useful for very little that TV manufacturers care about. It is useful for VCRs, but many of those have composite AV outputs and relatively few people watch VCRs on 4K TVs. It would also be useful for video game consoles that output only via RF, but many 4K TVs do not really accept a 240p signal, substantially limiting its usefulness.

Except for the SD card slot, I see this as no better than an atgames clone. In fact, it may even use the same hardware, because atgames uses some kind of enhanced GOAC and has a cartridge slot. Of course it fails with many cartridges, not just enhanced ones like Virtua Racing.

I'm pretty sure the atgames consoles simply use an emulator, and a bad one at that.

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